I think this is just you making gross assumptions. Some people would prefer seeing how their tactics fare in practice (i.e. via the visual representation of ME) before making tweaks.
Not everyone is able to mentally theorize about how to create more/defend better without some form of visual aid.
Calling this "beating" the ME is not very constructive don't you think?

1) What is wrong with the game randomly changing some non-essential rules like no. of subs? I don't think he's asking for SI to predict future decisions of FIFA.
2) Agree but I don't think that's the intention of his change. Yes it can be subject to abuse so I'm actually more in favor of random events affecting the game world.
3) Hmm I don't see how giving users control over non-essential game rules (not that I agree, see (2)) will affect the experience of picking up old games, because at the start of the game, the rules would be as per the game year. I also don't think he's asking for game patches from SI to update competition rules (he doesn't mention SI in any of his posts...).

Sorry I think you're creating a strawmen argument here. What he's trying to convey is that some rules change over time and that FM should strive to have this kind of variability AFTER you have started the game, either through some form of in-game editor or a random event occurrence in-game. You seem quite fixated on the fact that he wants to change some of the rules as he sees fit so that it adheres more closely to real-life rules, but this is just ONE of the ways that the rules in the game can stay current: through user-driven customisation.

I think the point still stands though; that if the reason that the squad AI is not up to scratch is that people at SI are not smart enough to do it (and it sounds damn conceited to me if you say that nobody else can do it better)
then I don't see why I want to continue to spend my hard-earned money buying a game that I'm ultimately not satisfied with. wwfan's justification that we need to help the process along by reporting bugs doesn't fly for me.

As a player who likes to play long-term games, it is incredibly frustrating how easy the game gets in 5 to 6 years. Setting aside the question of whether competition will improve the product and the difficulty of programming AI, I've ran out of patience with the series and have voted with my wallet (not bought FM 12). Until some serious efforts are put in to polish the existing product I won't be buying another FM. This is not meant to be some form of ultimatum by the way, just my humble opinion on things.
PS: wwfan, chill, man. I don't see why you have to be so argumentative, especially since your area of expertise is not squad-building AI right?

Quoted for truth. Plus they'll introduce features that annoys the majority of the players in the interest of "realism" (see Agents) while keeping the majority of the bugs from previous versions
(e.g. fixture clashes, AI, transfer market).

A really good piece of simulation software (which FM wants to be) should be resilient enough to handle unrealistic scenarios such as these. While the example is a bit extreme, the game is littered with examples of good footballers for sale with no interests (see various posts on Aquilani and Joe Cole). As usual, some people are defending the game for defending's sake.

Personally I would prefer a system where a "I'm not willing to sell for any price" suffices rather than this repeated haggling to find the right price to put the AI off. Unfortunately the way it works in-game is:
1) You reject the offer out right. The player's agent then demands a new contract (regardless of the loyalty of the player). This is repeated ad nauseum as the AI club will repeatedly bid the same amount.
2) You negotiate/set a high asking price so other clubs don't bid in the future/in the first place.
Both of these scenarios are not very realistic...

How is my original assertion that bugs existing over several years = SI having a terrible record of bug-fixing wrong?
Care to prove that the examples listed haven't existed over the past few versions?
If the best will in the world can't resolve these long-standing bugs (or even try to mitigate it),
then you'll have to excuse me if I don't buy another version until it IS resolved.